Skola med fördröjning. Nyanlända elevers sociala spelrum i ”en skola för alla”

Abstract in English

This dissertation aims to investigate the social situation at school for students that have migrated to Sweden during their last four years at compulsory school or during upper secondary school. The study investigates the social interaction between students with a special focus on the possibilities and hindrances for inclusion of the newcomer immigrant students in different groupings at school, and the ways these students handle possibilities and hindrances for social inclusion. The study focuses on newcomer immigrant students that are studying at different levels in the education system, from preparatory educational levels for newcomer immigrant students to regular education at compulsory or upper secondary school. Primarily the dissertation has an individual perspective, in that the interviewed students´ own experiences play a pivotal role. To be able to understand and explain why the social relations between students are the way they are, the analysis has also been connected to a macro level when needed. In this way the individual perspective is also to some extent put into an organizational perspective when it comes to how the school as an institution is organized, and a structural perspective when it concerns social power structures.

Since one aim of the investigation is to emphasize the students´ individual experiences of their school situation, the basic method chosen has been qualitative interviews of students. Field studies have been used as a complement. I have interviewed 29 students at different schools in Malmö. Eleven of these students participated in follow-up interviews one to one-and-a-half years after the first interview. Another completing method has been to interview mainly teachers, but also other members of school staff, to deepen my knowledge of the students´ school situation in order to obtain versatile interviews with the students. Interviews with students and their narratives are though the main focus of the study.

In order to analyze the empirical material I have mainly used theoretical tools and concepts from Erving Goffman and Pierre Bourdieu. One of the main concerns in Bourdieu´s sociological studies is the education system and how people within an educational field possess and compete for different hierarchical positions. Goffman´s theoretical perspective is closer to the individual and has contributed to the analysis of the different social relationships that the newcomer immigrant students are engaged in at school. Like Bourdieu´s theories Goffman´s theories can also be used to analyze power relations at school, for example through terms like stigmatization and total institutions.

One of the most central results of the study concerns some of the interviewed students´ narratives about social exclusion through stigmatization. To be a newcomer immigrant student in the investigated schools often means a social position with a lower status than both students born in Sweden with parents born here and students born in Sweden with parents born abroad. The stigmatization often involves other students distancing themselves from the newcomer immigrant students in more or less obvious ways, for example by contemptuous comments or by ignoring them. The starting point for the stigmatization is primarily the Swedish linguistic level of the pupils, being a newcomer immigrant, being categorized as a ”refugee” and placed in preparatory education separated from regular education. The stigmatization of the newcomer immigrant students is also connected to the fact that they, as opposed to other students, are not yet considered qualified for regular education. The study shows that there are obvious differences in the social status between students in preparatory and regular education. In this way the reception system for newcomer immigrant students is one factor that can contribute to social exclusion of these students at school.